WARNING - This thread isn’t made for new players or those that seek guidance on how to use said class, please look for proper threads regarding it such as class overviews and build guides. Design Breakdown is a design discussion thread only and has no purpose to help players on practical aspects of the game.
Starting another Design Breakdown with the former buggiest class in the game requiring any new player to read a guide in order to play it reasonably, that is no other than Hunter. In case this is your first time on a Design Breakdown topic go to this link for some basic information.
Hunter - RANK 3 - SUPPORT / CONTROL
On the strict side of the word Hunter can be anyone that seeks and takes down a specific target, in the more traditional sense of it a mark of a different species. However as dogs were tamed and petted it was possible to train them in many roles, with their predatory instinct they became great assistants for hunting and this trait is often taken as an element of Hunter’s fantasy. The core element of the theme is the ‘beast killing’ and the ‘taming/petting’ aspect is an addition that can be used.
Identity wise Hunter sells itself as an limited target control support companion master, opposed to the traditional direction the theme is known for, and that’s is a clever way to use it as it, this direction has companions to be faithful to their name as sidekicks instead of aces.
Coursing (C) - Lead
In the many contexts Coursing can be interpreted on the more appropriate to the skill seems to be chase, pursue and hunt down which is a fundamental action of hunting with a dog making use of its better sense of smell and speed, yet the focus on the skill goes to the restrain action over the hunting itself and as much as the shift helps in practicality it doesn’t make most of its fantasy.
Coursing is designed to be oppressive in every single aspect, it has a decent control duration that deals damage over time, decreases enemy defenses, makes them more susceptible to critical hits,has a low cooldown and overheats as well. That wouldn’t be much of an issue if it weren’t for the fact that the defense drop scales with level along with the damage in a natural exponential damage increase, the only reason it doesn’t goes out of control is its single target nature and slow travel speed to have the skill activated. As a lead skill it is acceptable to have all these components but it feels a lil off when the restrictions are weight, it’s hard to allow it to be used against bosses with those debuff components applying and the game doesn’t support much single target fighting, specially debuff oriented, aside for that and PvP. Another big issue with it is how the skill binds the companion to deal damage and the whole skill set of the class is oriented towards it, aside for Rush Dog any offensive skill will dispel the effect and not even the low cooldown and overheats can make up for the damage over time nature it has. The mental breakdown attribute is easy to ignore and it feels quite out of place, it does serves the class as a supportive component but may easily be ignored.
It’s hard to point out any improvement on the skill itself as the major issues lies in its self synergy and the only thing that can be said for sure is that all Hunters want it to be usable on bosses and for that to happen some concessions will have to be done. However it is possible to change the skill nature completely and go for what the name suggests as a chasing skill that makes the companion follow the marked target preventing it to hide and marking the location to the Hunter, . Expanding on this idea it may also have the companion to focus the enemy and attack it faster than usual, using the main character stats as a regular Hunter skill as well, which feels more like the gameplay people associate with the class fantasy.
Snatching (D) - Counter Lead
Despite being not being an easy action to pull out dogs can take down birds and other flying objects, this can also be employed as a team effort as the hunter can do a harming strike to decrease the target mobility for the dog to snatch it.
As one of the few skills that targets multiple enemies Snatching barely works out as a damage over time skill limited to flying enemies only, it may be the first skill available in game with the ability to ground enemies and makes them susceptible to terrain damage skills. Not to underestimate the skill it can be a powerhouse when taking the airborne enemy damage attribute that can double the bleeding damage, but it has no effect on any other enemy that has different mobility. The issue isn’t the limitation itself nor the skill concept but rather the placement of it as lower ranks are the stage of the game that skills have to be the most reliable possible so players can progress, that doesn’t help here at all.
The obvious approach to make the skill friendlier is to incorporate ground mobility enemies in the damage part even with less overall efficiency, in fact it’s possible to have it exactly as it is just by changing the name and be a simple biting skill that restrain enemy movement for a while.
Praise (F) - Complement
A important aspect of taming/petting is to build a bound with the companion which is likely to get it more motivated and susceptible to instructions and commands, this however is a matter of affection and that isn’t translated into the skill mechanics. It does make it more practical skill to use at the cost of the fantasy it comes with.
Usually buffs are safe skills to invest point and bring up a considerable benefit even if for only a small portion of the players, this isn’t the case here. Praise takes so many stats to boost out the companion yet they’re all flat in values and barely affect the class skills, not only that but it has for duration scaling with level as well for some reason yet as the buff is applied to the companion it isn’t possible to track down the duration in conventional ways. The only merit Praise has is the extra movement speed provided through attribute which does help the other skills to be executed faster, yet that is the minor part of it.
On all honesty this skill is pointless, even if the values are readjusted to scale with the caster stat it will only serve to take points out of more engaging skills for raw stats and that isn’t the best thing to have in Hunter. In fact it would be better to work on an affinity system for companions and have them to receive buff when petted regardless of the class using it, that also allows it to be flat, scale with the companion stats or have some different effects based on the companion race.
Pointing (F) - Midground
The concept of Pointing may lie on intimidation as it decreases focus related capabilities of the target and overall it is an interesting element to play with but the execution plays out boring and completely different.
As the only redeeming quality the skill has it can gather enemies randomly as a fake provoke, not even the fear attribute helps it to be taken seriously when the base mechanics are terrible and the chance to apply is that low. For those that aren’t familiar with the skill it reduces enemies’ accuracy and evasion, in a pitiful and flat amount, for a short non informed duration and that is done randomly each enemy single enemy it tracks, the base effect isn’t desirable and the skill is itself isn’t reliable at all. Not only that but this behavior makes the companion roam around to unpredictably seek enemies which can cause some conflicts when using the active skills and it can’t be cancelled.
It is possible to work it out by having values changed into % and removing the randomness of it, the other option is to change the skill into something completely different as what was suggested on Coursing.
Rush Dog (A) - Relief
A straight tackle, it isn’t necessarily a hunting thing and it’s more likely to be used defensively but it’s a valid addition to the class as a relief. The only straight forward skill that the class has and it works as expected and along with the low cooldown for unique cast it helps to keep some of class fantasy feel in the playstyle, it even gets extra points for not getting in the way of binding skills such as Coursing and Retrieve.
One thing that could be done to expand the class is to turn it into a command and be a level 1 free skill, that is due how simple it is and to open up the possibility for other skills to make use of it without having a mandatory nor oppressive point distribution, that also opens up more possibilities for other skills to be wacky and still be a class safeguard.
For the first circle there’s not much to be considered when taking skills, as only Pointing as a completely dysfunctional skill, even tho Praise isn’t really a match for the others. However the circle relies too much on Rush Dog being the only consistent skill for all kind of game content, Coursing is an effective damage skill but has no effect against bosses and is single targeted meanwhile Snatching can hit multiple enemies but is restricted to their ability, or lack of, to fly.
Retrieve (E) - High Lead
Likely to be the second most important action in tag hunting, when talking about dogs retrieve may relate to any action has the companion to take something to their instructor but for hunting in particular it refers to taking the prey.
In the current state of the class Retrieve is a mistake as it is a flat Coursing clone that drags the enemy towards the caster and also has an attribute to decrease defense of the target, it has the cooldown and overheats as well and a slighter lower damage on the higher extreme. The few things that can be pointed out will be at the circle overview.
Hounding (F) - Gimmick
If we take a strict approach to the word it may be taken as same as Coursing, however the approach on the theme that Hounding follows is more faithful.
For most of the game content this skill is useless and even when it does prove itself useful it can’t sustain itself with the current leveling factor, that is due the lack of stealth skills in the game and even fewer enemies that possesses them. It is possible to have the skill at level 1 only and still have all the functionality available due that, that is even more pointless when the skill cooldown is under 10s and in no practical scenario that requires a player to reveal more than 3 units in this time window. As the only skill effect it fails miserably.
There are many skills that can take this effect as an attribute component so having it as an individual skill isn’t really needed, however the concept of the act of Hounding could allow it to be some sort of aggressive behavior skill. At the current state it wouldn’t hurt to have an attribute that makes the companion auto cast Rush Dog when revealing an enemy.
Getting deeper into the class doesn’t really change the previous issues and Rush Dog is still a must take in order to progress through the game, as the game doesn’t provide scenarios where reveal is required Hounding is pointless to take and questionable to level. As matter of fact either the Retrieve effect should be delivered as a Coursing attribute or Coursing itself has to be changed into a different skill, there’s no need to both if not for being a way to bully people on PvP but i class as low as hunter shouldn’t have that kind of oppressive power.
Growling (F) - Grand Lead
Growling is a action that may cause other animals to retreat as the one using it is trying to convey power through fear, it may succeed and have the enemy to flee or fail and resume combat. It’s possible to pull it out both defensively and offensively by using the retreat as an attack window. The skill also makes use of fear paralysis as it immobilises all enemies nearby, yet it has room to have the effect active indefinitely which is quite an exaggeration of the skill power. What doesn’t connect is companion diversity the game offers when not all of them are physically capable of doing so, even if we consider it as a wild cry the effect doesn’t do the job but that’s a minor complain.
It’s a mystery as how skills like Growling are approved to be shipped, in plain rank 5 it can permanently control an unlimited amount of enemies in area with almost no SP cost when we consider the skill lasts for 10 minutes. The real issue lies in how the debuff is applied with an scaling duration and the appliance interval can be shorter than it, even to be applied twice before it expires when maxed requiring 3 consecutive resists to fail, and this allows it to be the only absolute control skill in game with less than 10s of cooldown. Even the few restrictions as distance, no effect on high priority targets and being dispelled by other Hunter skills don’t make up for power and safety the skill provides, the latter is actually worse as it breaks the class gameplay flow when the class itself has no skill isn’t used through the companion.
The easy and lazy way to adjust it is by having it as an active skill instead of a persistent effect, the issue however is that it can’t be balanced without new elements and even then it may not be enough to sustain itself as a last circle skill. Another option is to change it into a taunt directed to the companion and it does serve as a support and even as control skill.
It is unacceptable for a rank 5 skill to be close to an absolute stop skill, no more to say.
Conclusion
The skill set Hunter is odd and limited which makes it fairly ineffective in most of scenarios and even the higher points don’t make it excel in anything, that is aggravated by a terrible progression of Hunter as players have to rely on Rush Dog as primary skill for the 3 circles. Some may point out that the class is designed for PvP but even with powerful single target skills the rest of its kit doesn’t really support that to the point that the peak has no effect to characters whatsoever, even then having a class with that much focus on PvP as low as rank 3 isn’t the best idea when taking progression in consideration.
One thing that Hunter does great is how the gameplay is mechanically stiff, usually that can be bad for a class but as the theme plays with controlling a companion it feels natural to have commands to be used frequently and depending on the player practice it the cooldowns may not even be felt. This can only be achieved by ignoring the two behavior skills as they don’t add anything to the gameplay, Growling on the other hand breaks the flow completely making it feel completely out of place. If both Rush Dog and Growling were removed the class would be doomed with no way to tools to level and no reason to go deeper into the class, in fact Hunter’s basic kit doesn’t even make it good of a filler.
The major issue with Hunter is how the progression feels terrible as other classes do more with less commitment and how the basic skills don’t have much of a place in the higher levels, in fact the only content that individual target classes shine is bossing and Hunter can’t even do that properly. It’s noticeable that the class needs a heavy rework to rely less on two skills and get it to at least to the minimal at all the game modes. What players want the most for Hunter is to be more traditional on the identity and go for autocast and despite being fun and practical it will be a huge hit that can compromise the reinterpretation of identities related to classic themes, however that could be possible if done as a minor element and play along with the team work aspect of the fantasy.
| C 1 | C 2 | C 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | B | B | B |
| Theme | C | C | C |
| Gameplay | C | C | E |
| Cohesion | C | E | F |
| Point Distribution | D | D | E |
| Dropout | C | C | B |
It’s likely that something went missing on this one as this class is flat depressing, if you do find out please comment below so i can include it. New perspectives on the class are also interesting as Hunter may be perceived with a different identity and as i don’t get into PvP it may make a huge difference here. As planned the next class will be Templar and that won’t be less than terrible, i’m suggestions on what to cover next so just name it in the comments.